Sermon: ‘What’s the Word at Christmas?’
John 1:1–14
The gospels of Matthew and Luke start with the flamboyant details of the story of Jesus’ birth. This is where we get all the wonderful images of stars in the sky, shepherds in the paddocks, and the baby in the manger. …but we don’t get any of this here in John’s Gospel.
What is the emphasis here in this opening passage?
This passage begins and ends using the word ‘Word’ (with a capital letter) to talk about Jesus.
And the author has used this title deliberately to proclaim significant truths in the opening of his book about the Good News of God.
If this Good News is all about Jesus (who is the subject of John’s Gospel) why is the name ‘Jesus’ not used at all in this opening passage?
While the author will come to focus specifically on the life of Jesus in later chapters, here at the beginning perhaps we are given the broader context and the appropriate perspective for the meaning of the Good News
John’s Gospel begins with the line: “In the beginning…” echoing the opening of Genesis, where God creates all life. It is in Genesis that the story of God begins; the story of God creating, sustaining and interacting with humanity.
It is this same story in which Jesus is recognised as having a unique part.
It is this same God acting now as in the original creation.
It is the same plan being worked out,
the same intention driving the incarnation of Jesus.
I’ve heard the arrival of Jesus described as a ‘Plan B’ God thought up, as though Jesus had to be sent because the first plan crashed and burned. John’s Gospel makes it clear that the coming of Jesus is no ‘Plan B’ – the coming of Jesus is not only part of God’s original plan in creation, Jesus was present and involved in the original plan of creation.
So as well as showing us that Jesus’ arrival is part of God’s eternal plan, John’s Gospel tells us about Jesus’ identity. Jesus is God – not just an agent, a representative, an ambassador – but co-eternal with God. Jesus identity is inseparable from God and God’s plan for creation.
It’s because of this that our attention is directed to Jesus as He who reveals God and God’s plan. Jesus encounters us where we are and brings exactly what it is we need from God: “the Word became flesh and lived among us, …*... full of grace and truth.” (v14)
So what is God’s plan?
What is the purpose of creation, which is then picked up and fulfilled in the life of Jesus; the Word made flesh?
The truth is, that we don’t fully know God’s plan.
We do have the story of God that follows through the Old Testament, where God speak his word to people, and we have the revelation of God in Jesus.
Common to what we do know, is that God acts not of compulsion or a need to do anything, but rather from pure love.
God’s motivation behind his purposes and plan is love; love that is shared within the Godhead (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) and because of its gracious nature this love overflows, going beyond God’s self, where God creates, sharing the love of relationship and mutuality.
Such mutual love does not demand, and with our God-given ability to choose, we can choose to turn away from God. The truth is we make this bad choice with terrible consistency.
But the Good News is that in the person of Jesus (the Word made Flesh) we recognise God’s unfaltering nature of love, God’s desire for restored relationship, and God’s willingness to do what is necessary to achieve that for us.
With full consistency, God’s plan for us is worked out specifically in Jesus. In a specific moment of history, God’s eternal plan is decisively manifest. God’s Word is articulated most clearly.
In the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus the Word of God is made flesh; the will of God made most apparent. This part of God’s plan is made clear.
This is done in and through Jesus, in a double movement of grace:
firstly, Jesus comes to earth, and then Jesus returns to God.
Jesus comes to earth to share with humanity what is God’s, and then returns to God uniting our reality forever with that of God.
This first movement is the one we are primarily celebrating at Christmas. Jesus comes as a human into our reality, sharing God’s Word of love and life. But as we said Jesus is not just an agent, a representative, an ambassador – as well as being fully divine, Jesus is fully human.
So Jesus doesn’t simply tell us about God’s Word; in his very humanity, Jesus fulfils the appropriate and faithful hearing of God’s Word in perfect obedience.
In describing who Jesus is as the Word made flesh, T.F. Torrance describes Jesus as:
“[the] word of God addressed to man, but [also the] word received, obeyed and lived out as word answering to God in perfect truth, in the concrete faithfulness to God of a life lived from beginning to end in holiness and love and obedience.”[1]
And then, in the second movement, Jesus returns to God, lifting humanity up into union and communion with the life of God.
The Good News in Jesus Christ is that God is not some remote and dispassionate deity. God has a plan of love and life. And two thousand years ago, in an obscure patch of semi-desert God acts decisively – once and for all.
God steps into our lives, he immerses himself into our reality, into our situation, bonds himself to it forever and blesses us with his own nature which is love. The Word became flesh.
God’s eternal purposes become specific to a point in our history, and today we rejoice in the ongoing life and love available to us all, today and in the days to come.
Jesus is ‘Emmanuel’ – God with us.
Jesus Christ is born today, giving us cause to rejoice.
Amen.
[1] T.F. Torrance Incarnation, 2008 (p.64)